Some Suburbs Find Zoning Can Lead To Smaller Towns

A new kind of border war is flaring in the suburbs. But towns are not grabbing up land to extend their corporate limits; they are desperately fighting to keep what they have.

From Barrington Hills and Mt. Prospect in Cook County to Wayne in Du Page County to Mettawa in Lake County, landowners and developers situated on the outskirts of towns have split off or are trying to break away in zoning disputes.

The issue is greater freedom to do what they want on their land. If they cannot get zoning changes to build more homes than allowed or to put up an office complex, for example, they want to get out of one town`s jurisdiction and go back under county rules. Or they want to annex to a town where zoning laws are less restrictive.

Municipal officials contend that the court-sanctioned moves disrupt long- term planning and threaten to touch off new disputes between neighboring towns.

``It makes indefinite where village boundaries would be,`` said Mayor James Kempe of Barrington Hills, which lost a pivotal case that cleared the way for other disconnections. ``You don`t know which pieces are going to stay in and which are going to stay out.``

Added Barrington Hills Village Manager Bob Kosin, ``Even after towns are cheek to jowl with one another, annexation wars are still possible.``

Flush with courtroom successes, developers would rather switch than fight zoning battles, said John Zimmerman, village attorney for Mettawa, which is locked in a lawsuit with industrial supply giant W.W. Grainger Inc.

``That`s why a lot of municipalities are concerned about the onslaught of these petitions,`` he added.

Mettawa, an exclusive enclave with minimum 5-acre lots near Lake Forest, refused to approve Skokie-based Grainger`s plans to build a new corporate headquarters on land zoned for residential use. In December, Grainger petitioned the Lake County Circuit Court to disconnect its 532-acre site from the village, and the matter remains in court.

Patrick Lucansky, municipal attorney for Lincolnshire, Oak Lawn and other towns, said a new breed of developers is using the threat of disconnection as leverage.

``A few developers decided they had a new ploy to get out when they weren`t getting what they want,`` he said. ``It can really affect a municipality if large tracts are pulling out simply because the developer is not getting the zoning he wants.``

In response to the Mettawa case, Lincolnshire in March became the first Illinois community to adopt an anti-disconnection law, Lucansky said.

Such laws represent an effort by towns with home-rule powers to gain the upper hand. An Illinois Municipal League committee of village attorneys this year drafted three model ordinances that would supersede state law and make disconnections impossible without the blessings of city officials.

Lucansky played a key role in drafting the model ordinances and said they came about in response to a situation in Barrington Hills. Owners of 90 acres of farmland there filed a disconnection petition in 1986 after the Village Board turned down a request to build houses on 1-acre lots instead of the required 4- or 5-acre lots.

Barrington Hills won a lower court decision but lost in the Illinois Appellate Court. On a further appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court in January 1990 affirmed the property owner`s rights to divorce from the village.

Under state law, a property owner with 20 or more acres at the edge of a town can disconnect as long as the action does not violate five conditions:

The move cannot isolate a part of the village from the remaining part; cause substantial disruption of sewer, water or other utility service; result in loss of revenue to the municipality; and cause unreasonable disruption of zoning and planning.

The new Lincolnshire ordinance, however, requires approval of the Village Board for a disconnection, effectively killing the chances of a property owner to get out of the village as long as the village wants the property owner in. Another variation under consideration in south suburban South Holland would prohibit disconnection if the property has ever had public improvements paid by special assessments, has been included in a special service area, has been included in a tax increment financing district, or has received money from industrial revenue bonds issued by the village.

But Tom Burney, one of the attorneys for the property owner in the Barrington Hills case, defended the status quo. Recent court decisions in favor of disconnection have helped ``start to balance things out when you have so much power on one side and so little power on the other,`` he said.

Muncipal attorneys said they believe the shift in power has gone too far. The courts` interpretation of the law does not take into account the reasons for a disconnection petition, Mettawa`s Zimmerman said.

A town carefully lays plans to provide water, sewer and other services for all residents and areas within its boundaries, including those where development may be years away, he said.